


Family

by Challopea



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, Family, Holidays, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-06
Updated: 2013-11-06
Packaged: 2017-12-31 16:59:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1034110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Challopea/pseuds/Challopea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hange and Levi moved into a new home, and family were coming over for the holidays. A little bit of brain twister. Please read and leave me a comment--let me know if the story is too contrived.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family

Levi walked up towards the two story house at the end of the street, which nestled cozily into the its surroundings. The only thing that made it stand out was the weird barn like structure in the backyard. It was huge and as tall as a tower, at least 15 meters tall. 

He had never lived there--the construction was still going on when he left home to join the Scouts after his 12th birthday. The decision practically drove his Dad crazy, and threw the entire household into turmoil. Everyone tried to talk him out of it, but Levi had made up his mind. Even his little sister got so angry that she refused to speak to him and pretended that she had never not known him.

The old man had everything planned out for Levi. He wanted the boy to go to the best university in Sina city, graduate with the most shining degree, join the King's personal staff, and then maybe someday the cabinet.

It had been almost six months and the old man had never written or called him. His mother had been bombarding him with letters since Day 1. The letters were usually as pointless as her rantings in general, including every detail about the sluggish progress on their new big house and the move.

‘Please do come home for the holidays! We can’t wait to show you the house and my beautiful and wonderful new lab.’ Sounded like she had no clue that he would rather visit the Devil in the hell, than her intolerably messy lab. Levi sighed.

‘Cling, Cling, …, Cling,... Click!’ A small bicycle clanked its way up from behind, made a squeaking sharp turn and stopped right in front of him, forcing him into a sudden stop.

‘Hi!’ 

The little girl on the bike first raised her greasy little right hand up to her face to adjust the big square glasses rested on her nose bridge, and then above her head to wave eagerly at him. ‘Do you live in this neighborhood?’ the girl, who was probably no older than 6 or 7, asked with a big ear-to-ear grin on her face, her large brown twinkling eyes blinking eagerly at him.

‘Wha... What?' Shocked by the strange question behind that large hearty welcoming smile, it took Levi a little while to realize what she was really asking. He took a deep breath, shook his head and answered, 'No?'

‘Then...are you visiting that big ugly house at the end of the street?’ the girl pointed behind her and then commented, big brown eyes sparkling with mischief.

‘No.....’ Levi hesitated, not knowing which one was the better answer, yes or no. But from the happy way the little girl bobbling her head, it seemed that he had guessed it right.

‘Ha! I knew it!’ the little girl moved her bike a couple of steps closer. She looked around very carefully as if to double check no one was in the hearing range, and then stood up from the saddle, leaned on her tiptoes and said in a barely audible voice, as if to share some forbidden secret, ‘I think the Addams Family live there.’

‘The Addams Family, as in the cartoon book series “The Family of Monsters”, you know?’ The girl quickly added. She might have mistaken the expression of shocks on Levi’s face as puzzlement and hurried to supply him with more supporting arguments to her wild guess.

‘The man is very short and the woman is very tall, just like Gomez and Morticia.’ 

Gomez and Morticia? Levi almost chuckled. His father was 5 feet 3 and his mother was 5 feet 7. In a sense, that was a big difference, especially in the exaggerating eyes of a five year old.

Taking the muffled chuckle as an encouragement, the little girl went on, ‘there is also this big bald old guy who often comes by, just like Uncle Fester.’

Big bald old guy? That must be Uncle Erwin. Poor Uncle Erwin had definitely lost most of his hair in the past few years and also added on a couple of pounds. But Levi still could not imagine him putting a light bulb in his mouth and trying to light it up.

‘Have you ever seen...’ Levi joked laughingly. 

But before he could finish his question, the little girl shook her head and added, ‘I have never seen him doing it,’ with a motion of putting something big and round into her mouth, ‘but I am sure he can-- you know, his head is so smooth and bright, I am sure if you keep on rubbing it," her tiny little hand moving up to her messy greasy hair, trussing around in circular motions, before raising all the way up, "and then, ding, it will just light up like that!"

Not able to hold them back any longer, Levi burst into a short series of quick laughs.

‘See, I told you so!’ the girl grinned happily, ‘And there is also this very weird guy who thinks every day is Halloween. You know, he always shows up in his costumes, weird robes and a crown, as if he is playing dress up as a King.’ 

‘That must be Eren.’ Poor Bro, he must really hate his job to run back to their parents’ house that often. 

‘Eren? He must be named after the King! Ha, that is it! Poor guy thinks he is King just because he was named after one! His wife is very beautiful, though.’ 

Mikasa, who was so beautiful. Levi nodded, remembering what a big crush he had on her when he first met her as a little kid.

‘See?! How come a girl that beautiful marries a guy who must have run away from a mad house?’ the little girl furrowed up her brows as if trying to figure out an answer to some cosmic scale question. 

Then she added, ‘on second thought, she is not very normal herself. You know that crazy guy, her husband? He gets thrown out of the middle window on the second floor like every three minutes during dinner time.’

Seeing the apparent concerns on Levi’s face, the little girl shook her head and said, ‘no, don’t worry, he never gets injured. He always just stands up and walks it off as if nothing happened.’ 

Levi chuckled again. Eren and his Titan’s healing powers.

‘But that is not the crazy part!’ the little girl tucked at Levi’s sleeve, demanding his full attention to the more important secrets she was just about to share. ‘The crazy part is that every time he gets thrown out, his wife would just zip out of those windows on some thin line, swoop him up, and zip right back through'

‘Oh, she must be very good with 3D maneuvering gears.’ Levi commented.

‘Yes. She is.’ the girl nodded and grinned, ‘....Do you know there are also monsters living in their backyard? Big scary monsters show up in the middle of the night when everybody else in the neighborhood is asleep?’

‘Oh, no, no waayy! Monsters, are you kidding me!’ Levi put up the biggest shock he could manage on his face.

‘Of course not, they are so scary, and so BBBIIIIGGGG! There is one at least 60m tall!’

Bertolt--poor guy, Eren must have volunteered the reticent giant so he can avoid being experimented on by their mother.

‘And there is also this very stout monster, not as tall, but very very strong. I am sure he can break anything, even huge, thick walls!’

Reiner. Another favorite of his mother, second only to Eren and Bertolt.

‘And this huge black-haired girl, always with this tiny little blonde sitting on her shoulder.’

Ymir and Historia. He was a little surprised that even they were not spared.

‘And, and,...’ the little girl suddenly realized that she was running out of monsters to count, paused, and thought very hard on some other secrets about the family of the monsters to share.

‘And all of them are up there in the house, right now!’ tiny greasy fingers pinching on both of her cheeks, the little girl tried to pulled them into a big 'scaring' face.

Stupid girl had no clue what she was doing to her own face. Levi's brows frowned at the sight of the smudges left by those greasy fingers. 

‘Don't be so scared!’ misconstruing Levi's frown as fear, the little girl reached out, tiny hand patting on his big forearm, trying to offer him some consolation. Those big brown eyes behind thick glasses smiled mischievously. 

‘Haven't met you yet, hmm?’ the little girl added with even more twinkles in her eyes, while patting his arm really hard with her tiny hand, ‘by the way, my name is Zoe! Your name is not Levi, right?’ 

Levi chuckled, but that was a very valid question. After the war against the Titans, the names Levi and Zoe had become very popular for newborns. Even more popular than the names of the King and the Queen, in many areas. Guess Eren and Mikasa still sounded too strange to a lot of parents.

‘Yes. Unfortunately.’ Levi bent down to ruffle the messy brown top of the little girl with a deep heart-felt sigh, giving her a big tight hug. His hand was almost out of his pocket with the handkerchief tucked between the fingers, when the middle window on the second floor suddenly burst open, and a head of short raven hair popped out.

‘Junior, stop loitering around, and pull your sorry ass right up here, you damned idiot! What the hell took you so long? Everyone's waiting for you!’ the man at the window shouted angrily, shooting big dark scowls at the young man in the street.

‘I hate the name,' the younger man sighed, shook his head, stood up, and turned around to look up at that slightly older version of his own face perching at the windows.

‘Hey, Levi, do you know how to avoid being called “junior”?’ the little girl standing beside him tugged at his sleeves, and asked sheepishly with a big smirk on her face.

‘What?’ Levi sighed.

‘Get rid of it! I mean, you just need to get married, have your own son, and give him the same name! Then you will be “Levi the Second”, not "junior” any more.’

‘Tsk!’ the older man at the windows rolled his beady eyes even further towards the sky, completely discounting the idea as if it would be forever before that happened. 

Luckily, before he could throw out another harsh comment, the brown haired head of a woman in her late thirties popped up right on top of his at the window. "Welcome back, my sweet dear little Levi!" The woman shouted before she could dislodge the older man slightly to his left and squeezed her right arm, shoulder, and a big part of the right side of her upper body out, waving eagerly at the young man below. She exclaimed with an excited voice, 'Do you know how much Mommy missed you, my little angel? Come! Hurry up! The dining room is on the second floor. We are all waiting for you, lots and lots of food. All your favorites, Daddy's the cook!" Then she swung her left arm around the neck of the man next to him, squeezed it with all its force, giving the still very stoutly built older man a slight jerk upward. 'How many times do I have to tell you that no more swearing in front of the babies?' she swatted the man's shoulder and asked. 

"They are not babies any more." The older man murmured in the back of his throat. 

"Hi, Mother!" Levi waved back at the woman before she could retort, "I am coming right up!" He turned back towards the front door with a barely noticeable helpless shake of his head. His parents. He knew that Dad would be the cook. It did not take much to figure that out. After she tried to sneak some unknown substance into their food and almost set their old house on fire, twice in less than 2 months, it had become their No. 1 house rule--Mom may never be allowed in the kitchen. She protested vehemently, but the old man was adamant and swore that he would build a big lab for her and she could do whatever she wanted in it, even cooking for her beloved titans. Of course, as usual Eren, poor bro, ended up stuck with the bill. 

A nice perk of having an adopted son elected to be the figure-head of the new government. Levi shook his head slightly at the big ugly Barn behind the house, adjusted the strap of the large duffel bag on his shoulder, and started climbing the steps leading up to the porch.

‘And you too, little Zoe! Don’t try to run away just because Daddy said you have to eat your vegetables!’ the woman called out to the little girl who was paddling her bike as fast as she could before she managed to sneak away.

‘Yes, Mommy!’ the little girl answered in a reluctant voice, stopped and turned around very, very slowly with lips pouting up towards the sky.

Damn parents! Could they just be a little more imaginative and stop naming their kids after themselves? The young man on the stairs stopped, waiting for his younger sibling to catch up and sighed.

On second thought, even though his kid sister might not mind a name like ‘Wednesday’, he would never want to be called ‘Pugsley’.


End file.
